We talk a lot about sustainability — reusable bags, shorter showers, electric cars. However, there is a less visible change occurring in the same direction as all that and it does not necessarily feature in the headlines: the transformation of our consumption, creation, and connectivity by digital means. And best of all, some of those changes are actually doing more to the environment than you might think.

In This Article:

The Hidden Cost of the Physical World

Consider all the stuff that is produced that gets discarded due to one decision:

Someone ends up with a tattoo that he/she regrets.
A campaign with a change of direction has a business printing thousands of brochures.
A customer purchases a product after seeing how it would appear in an image, and then he or she sends it back when he or she finds out that it is not the same in reality.

Each of those scenarios leave an embodiment: energy, materials, waste. And in the example of no one event which appears disastrous, the total impact is colossal. That is where digital tools are slowly creeping in, not to substitute the real-world experiences, but to make it more conscious.

Try Before You Commit (And Save Resources Doing It)

Simultaneously, one of the most underestimated advantages of the contemporary digital tools is the option to see the results before devotion to something physical.

Take body art as an example. Earlier days were characterized by the selection of a tattoo design being a guess, a sketch on paper and most of the time a walk out of the studio with an unexpected tattoo design. Today, a Picture to Tattoo Generator lets people upload a photo and experiment with designs digitally, seeing exactly how something might look on their skin before any ink is involved. Fewer impulsive actions imply fewer cover up meetings and less energy, less material, and less regrets.

The same reasoning can be applied to industries. The outcome is being less wasteful on all levels when individuals are able to preview and refine prior to committing.

The production of content has a footprint of its own environment, an environment with which we rasrely consider. Video files are massive. High-resolution content is expensive to store, stream and transfer due to heavy server infrastructure and power usage. It is one of those hidden expenses that are a part of our day to day digital existence.

This is the reason why the tools, which make the packaging and sharing of content more efficient, are more significant than one would think.

Small Scale Optimization, Big Impact

An Online Video to GIF Tool, for instance, lets creators extract short, lightweight clips from longer video files. Rather than uploading or sharing a full-length video during a moment worth celebrating a bit, a small and squashed GIF does it consuming a small fraction of the bandwidth and storage.

Take that and multiply it by millions of daily social posts and the saving will begin to accumulate in real time:

Less server load.
Less data center energy consumption.
Less time to any individual load.

Bigger environmental impacts are achieved by small scale optimization. You know that is not a platitude, that is just math.

The Retail Revolution: From Returns to Reduce

Retail has been revolutionized by online shopping and has brought about a crisis of the return. Packages are sent by billions annually, and returned immediately—sometimes because the item did not appear the way the customer thought. Some of the worst are clothing and beauty products.

The solution, as it happens, could be more visualization prior to the purchase. A Virtual Hair Styling Tool, for example, lets someone try on different colors or cuts digitally before making a decision in a salon or buying a box of dye.

When individuals are able to truly visualize themselves in the end result, they will make more confident decisions—and more confident decisions will result in:

Less returns.
Less re-shipping.
Less packaging waste filling up landfills.

It sounds trivial. It isn’t. The logistics of returns produces an astonishing carbon footprint and even minimising a part of the avoidable returns makes a difference in environmental impact.

Designing for Intention, Not Just Innovation

The idea of technology and sustainability is prone to the belief of two different conversations. The most interesting innovations in the present day however are those that make human behavior more conscious—that bridge the gap between the way we imagine things to be, and the way they actually are.

As long as one is able to view, experiment or feel something digitally, then they are able to make better choices. Improved decisions imply reduced waste. Fewer wastes would represent a smaller imprint on the earth. It is not about guilt-tripping people into changing their behavior. It is about creating systems and instruments that will convert the deliberate decision into the effortless decision.

The Bigger Picture

We are at a stage where the environmental dialogue should go beyond what we are eating, and begin discussing our decision making. Our visualization, preview, and refinement tools are included in the sustainability equation even though they do not resemble the green technology of the era.

Lightweight content formats, digital visualization tools, and technology of smart preview are not eclipsing physical action, but are making it more meaningful. And in a world where waste is much a by-product of poor information and an impulsive decision, that purposefulness is important.

The following generation of environmental influence will not be in the form of improved batteries or clean energy. It will come in more superior tools which will enable people make wise decisions and that is a future worth looking forward to.